TELLING

Part 3 - How do you tell the children?

Everyone will find their own individual way of working through this milestone. Reading all this material will simply give you the courage, the ‘push’ and the knowing that it can and must be done. Personally, I found I had to start immediately working through this, and it was more for my own sake than that of the child. How I tackled this will be found in ‘My Story – part 2’. Even though speaking about adoption before the child is able to reason, you will want to know if the child understands.

Here is one woman’s story - (Quoted from Alison Kirkland)

“Come here, I have something to say to you.” When I was a child, those words used to fill me with dread. They usually meant that my school report had arrived and I was due to be cut down to size with a long lecture. However, the two bright, happy faces peering at me around the corner had no such fears and ran eagerly to my side to hear what had become the “old, familiar story”.

When we adopted our children, we were advised to tell them that they had been adopted right from the start, but can anyone inform me how you tell very young children something like that?

However, we had persevered year after year, and, at last, were being rewarded with questions instead of blank stares.

Today I decided that I would ask the questions and see if the children could give me the right answers.

“Bruce,” I asked the eldest child, “what does adopted mean?”

His eyes grew big and wide and a finger crept into his mouth, a sure sign that he was at least thinking.

Out came the finger with a plop. “Like that cow that had a baby but no milk, so we gave her calf to another cow.”“Good boy!” We are getting somewhere. “Jane, who in this family is adopted?”Big grins and giggles, much squirming and shuffling of feet. “Me ‘n him.”Yes! But tell me, Jane, what does it mean to us?“You and daddy wanted to be a family.”“Yes” I prompted, “so what did we do?”“You went to an office and got a baby.”

Pictures flashed through my mind of offices full of babies waiting to be handed out. I smiled.

“Well, you have the general idea, but let me put it another way. Why are you so precious to daddy and me?”“It’s cause you couldn’t have babies but you could choose what you wanted and not all mummies can choose and you chose us.” Screeched Bruce in one breath.

I sighed with relief. Obviously they were remembering the salient facts and that is all that matters really. Maybe I worry about all this too much, but I still feel the story must be repeated often enough for the children to accept it as part of their life, so that they can grow up knowing that we feel no shame, no disappointment, and that they, themselves, have nothing to hide.

After all, let’s be honest people, children especially, can be very cruel and should someone, one day, mention to my children that we are not their natural parents I want them to be able to face the fact squarely and with pride. For are they not the “chosen” ones?

As soon as the children were old enough to take an interest in books, I searched the library for something with an adoption theme. It surprised me just how difficult it was, and the odd one or two that I did locate seemed to skim over the most important points.

Jane enjoyed them thoroughly, because a story is a story, but I could see that Bruce, with his rather more serious outlook on life, needed more than a few banal words and pictures of adoring mothers and fathers!

I left the children’s section of the library alone and began to look in the animal stories. There were shelves and shelves of books there – you’d be amazed at the number of people who have taken strange animals into their homes and made them part of their family.

I was lucky because Bruce loves animals and will sit and listen for hours. I read the books at night, made small notes on the parts I wanted to explain to the children, and tried to simplify the language a bit.

Children don’t like to be different in any way from others, so I have pointed out that it isn’t all that unusual to be adopted. Most children have pets, and these pets are, after all, adopted! (Be careful though of comparing their adoption to that of a pet)

At Christmas time we go through all the toys in the cupboard, and always among the old toys put aside for the less fortunate children, there is one from each of them that is loved. They know that there are children with no mummies and daddies to love and take care of them, so they share a little of the love that we give to them in this way. And, surprisingly enough, I have never had any tears or tantrums over this annual ‘giving away’.

The most difficult question the children have asked is about their real mothers. This is a natural and, in fairness to the child, must be answered as fully and honestly as possible. After all, if one mother can give them away, what is to stop you doing it too?

For the sake of their security and peace-of-mind, the question must be dealt with as soon as it is asked. Never tell an adopted child that he is too young to understand. Let him be the judge of that. Explain as best you can and then encourage him to ask questions.

Of course, it also depends on what the real truth is, and whether it would be harmful in any way to tell the child. However, with a little sensible and calm thought, there are ways around the harshest facts.

In the normal run of events, the real mothers are young and unmarried. In this case, we think it is best to emphasise that their mothers did not want to give them away, but decided that the child would be better off with a mummy and daddy who needed a baby to make a family and who could love and look after it as it should be.

You could explain that it is very difficult for a young girl to take care of a child, feed it and clothe it, buy toys and send it to school and at the same time, work to earn the money for all these things.

It is a very hard question to answer, and always depends on the child and the circumstances. We are trying to bring up our children to be honest, up-right, well-adjusted people, and if we ourselves are devious, how can we expect the youngsters to be any different? So, be honest!

I think, too, that we worry about it a lot more than we need to. Children who have a happy, secure home life are naturally resilient, as long as they know they can come to you with any problems, at any time, and get a fair straight answer, half the battle is won. They will trust you! As they get older and start reasoning with their thinking they may catch you unawares with the odd and unexpected question, but all you can do is be honest.

I have told my children all I can at the moment, and must just wait to see what they have understood. I hope I’ve gone about it correctly and that I’ve done nothing which will harm them in later years. This, however, is a problem faced by all parents, not just adoptive ones. We will only know when the children are grown up whether we have done right or not, and by then it will be too late.

Bruce has just come running back into the house. He is horse crazy at the moment, and spends all his spare time in the stables. Doors fly open and are slammed, and a rather breathless, dirty little boy appears at my side.

“Mum, do you think we could adopt a horse?” he asks.

This sort of thing makes me wonder … !